Dear ,

Yes, the summer just kept getting busier and busier and more and more fun, and the fun just keeps on comin'. Summer ended with a fun and intimate show at the Felt Mansion in Saugautuck, an outdoor church service, an indoor church service followed by a benefit spagetti dinner, sitting in with our friend Jack Williams at a lovely house concert on a lake, a house concert for the benefit of the Muskegon Museum of Art, a private breakfast time show in Mt. Pleasant, a wonderful concert at Michigan's famed Little Sable Point Light House, and a house concert on a deck overlooking Lake Michigan near Grand Haven. WOW, are we smilin'!

And the adventure continues. We're currently getting ready for our appearance at the legendary Wheatland Music Festival. We played it once back in the early 90's Amaryllis days, and we're really looking forward to playing again as a quartet with our great friends John King and Daniel Seabolt. It's a Friday evening show at 6:00 on the Centennial Stage, and Dan is in a fiddle workshop on Saturday afternoon while Ruth is in a songwriter workshop on Sunday. Yup, we're experiencing the whole weekend!

Oh, did we mention that our new CD has arrived? Without the Smoke & Flash (the name is taken from a lyric of one of Ruth's songs) is in our hands and available wherever we go. It'll soon be up on CDBaby. We'll let you know when it arrives there. It's the Ruth & Max Bloomquist Band recorded live and features our audiences' most requested cover songs seasoned with a few of Ruth's originals. We hope you'll like it.

To top it all off, we leave two days after Wheatland to tour in the UK (4 shows in Buckinghamshire) and Southern France (shows in Montpellier, Lodeve, Dio, etc.) These trips are always exciting and we love making new friends across the big pond.

We return in early October, take a brief rest and then head for the Folk Alliance Region Midwest (FARM) conference where we have an official showcase.

Then, on October 20 we'll have the official CD Release Concert for Without the Smoke & Flash at the new larger and much improved location of the The Book Nook and Java Shop in Montague, MI. Capacity is just over 100, so get your tickets early.

That's it for now. Welcome to September and the beginning of Autumn everyone. Specific dates are in the schedule below. We'll add more as they come in.

Thanks. We couldn't do this without folks like you!

All the best,

Ruth & Max